Tons and tons of them (I like birds)

Now that there are 7 billi0n of us on this planet, it seems appropriate to look at and appreciate other great big collections of creatures. This week I came across a wonderful little video (here) of Starlings by Liberty Smith and Sophie Windsor Clive:

now, wasn’t that cute. and incredibly impressive.

In September, I spent a week in eastern Austria (Burgenland) birding and taking birding product photos and I got to see huge flocks of starlings enjoying the grapes (as we enjoyed the products thereof that evening). It looked something like this:

But the world’s most abundant wild bird is the little Red-billed Quelea (Quelea quelea) which can form spectacular flocks but, it seems no-one has thought to film any of these flocks and put them in HD on Youtube, so we will have to make do with this video:

But how about these Socotra Cormorants (Phalacrocorax nigrogularis) in Bahrain:

and these Vaux’s Swifts coming in to roost in an Oregon school:

and don’t forget this collection of various beautiful parrots:

but at the end of the day, nothing sums it up better than a little ditty from The Eels:

Dale got his first pair of binoculars for a very early birthday after his dad realized that it was the only way to be left in peace. Many robins, eagles and finches later, he ended up at university studying various biology things and wrote a thesis on vertebrate biogeography in southern African forests. While studying, he also worked on various conservation/research projects (parrots, wagtails, vultures, and anything else that flew) and ringed thousands of birds. Dale studied scarlet macaws, and worked in their conservation, for three years in southern Costa Rica, followed by a year in the Caribbean working on Whale Sharks. After meeting the woman of his dreams, he moved to Austria where he now has the coolest job in the world making awesome toys for birders (Swarovski Optik product manager). He happens to also be obsessed with photography, particularly digiscoping, and despite all efforts will almost certainly never be a good birder. He also blogs for birdingblogs.com